Posts tagged “california

On your left

Posted on 24 September 2022

“On your left!” “Thank you!” “Thank you!” “On your left!” “Get it, girl!” “I’m trying!” And so on. A couple weeks later, back home, while passing a couple of other cyclists with a wide berth: “Hey, coming up on your left!” Silence. I was a little put out. They call the community at AIDS/Lifecycle “the Love Bubble”, which is cheesy and something I typically have trouble embracing for that; such things are, all too often, a façade, an untruth. But the reality is, people on the ride were so damn friendly. I was there, unexpectedly, on my own, and yet as I rode among hundreds of other groups of people, I found friends. I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about how it’s hard…

Stuck

Posted on 23 December 2021

This is about where I didn’t go as much as where I did go. Landscapes shifted drastically over space but comprehension remained steady. I knew how to interact. I understood everything. I threw myself into a vast land, I hauled myself into higher altitudes, I walked between rocks that reached up to the sky and, still, there was always a sense of familiarity. A part of me reaches for the total unknown. I want to be submerged in that which I do not recognize or understand. I want to be overwhelmed, bombarded with novelty. I miss different languages, different cultures, different buildings streets rules stores food almost everything. As much as we, humans, fuck each other and much else over, I suppose sometimes I…

Observations From Various States Made in 2013

Posted on 1 January 2014

2013 was the year when the ache intensified. It was hardly existent in January—I came away from three months in Peru and Bolivia happy and excited, and the glow took time to fade. But, life happens, and the realization that 2013 would be the first year since 2005 that I wouldn’t make it abroad settled in me like a rough stone. Even so, I traveled far across the United States and both new and old places can teach you. As anything can. Ohio. Ohio embraces me; it cups my cheek in its hand. Ohio is where I made myself, and it holds some of the people whose approval I desire most. Returning, I was at once reassured and my longing intensified. There are some…

The Bridge and the Fog

Posted on 6 September 2013

We scaled the Marin headlands in our rental car, seeking an icon—the bridge, what else? Midway up, we hurriedly parked and peered toward the Golden Gate, which was obscured by a thick, blue grey white trundling mass. This sea above a sea, it calmly rushed over hills, over water, toward the city. “Sorry!” my friend said. “You can’t even see the bridge!” No sorry. Despite the fog, because of the fog, we could see so much. A rainbow hovered in front of us, arching over our shadows. The fog, presenting our alternate selves. Higher we went. A sense of adventure permeated the thick air, even though nothing was happening but the evening wearing on. And the fog flowed like a river, a waterfall over…